


The Greater Good

by QuantumFeat72



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Introspection, One Shot, Spoilers - Undertale Pacifist Route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-18
Updated: 2016-04-18
Packaged: 2018-06-03 01:26:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6591064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuantumFeat72/pseuds/QuantumFeat72
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Undyne has a crisis of conscience.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Greater Good

**Author's Note:**

> "If you convince yourself you have no choice, you can do anything. It's all downhill from here."  
> \- zarla-s.tumblr.com  
> This is pretty heavily inspired by the handplates au, but doesn't actually take place in it.
> 
> (If you don't know about the handplates au, go to http://zarla-s.tumblr.com/post/139516306171/okay-i-get-a-lot-of-questions-about-what-order-the )

Sans looks up from his quantum physics book as Papyrus flops onto the couch next to him with a sigh.  “sup, bro?” he asks, putting the book down, “how was practice?”

“GREAT.  PRACTICE WAS GREAT.”  Papyrus grabs the remote, voice uncharacteristically flat.

“ok what’s wrong?”

“WHY DO YOU THINK SOMETHING IS WRONG?”

“that’s your ‘something awful just happened’ face.  what’s goin’ on?”

Papyrus gives up flicking through channels and sighs again.  “UNDYNE AND I HAD A... DISAGREEMENT.  THAT’S ALL.”

“shit, you didn’t get in a fight, did you?”  Sans takes a cursory look at Papyrus for injuries, finding none.

“NO, NOTHING LIKE THAT.  SHE... BELIEVES THAT WE’LL HAVE TO KILL THE NEXT HUMAN TO COME DOWN HERE.”  Papyrus rubs the back of his neck and avoids Sans’ eyes.  “SHE IS VERY GREAT, BUT SOMETIMES SHE ALMOST SOUNDS LIKE...”

“...gaster?”  Papyrus nods minutely and Sans slumps into the couch.  “shit, bro.  do you think-”

“NO.  I DO NOT THINK UNDYNE IS LIKE HIM.  SHE IS DANGEROUS, BUT THE GREAT PAPYRUS KNOWS HOW TO DEAL WITH DANGEROUS PEOPLE.”  He smiles at Sans, warm and genuine.  “I WON’T GIVE UP.”

 

* * *

 

“hey.”  Sans walks up to Undyne as she spears a training dummy.  She turns around sharply upon noticing his presence.

“Oh, you’re Papyrus’ brother, right?”

“yup.” he holds out his hand and to shake.  “sans the skeleton at your service.”

Undyne accepts his hand and Sans realizes too late that he should’ve put a whoopee cushion on it.  “Why are you here?”

“wanted to invite you to lunch.  my treat.”

“No thanks.”

Sans shrugs.  “alright.  but, uh, i wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Okay?”

Sans slips his hand into his pocket and leans against the wall.  “i don’t know if you know this, but my brother is pretty quick to trust.  sometimes... often... he ends up putting that trust in the wrong people.  now, papyrus is an adult who can make his own decisions, and it’s not my place to tell him who he can and can’t be friends with.  but.  he told me something interesting the other day.”

Sans lets the confusion in Undyne’s face ruminate for a second before continuing.

“y’know, there’s a certain, uh, willpower that some people have.  determination.  a drive bordering on obsession.  i’ve seen it in you.  and so has he.”

“So you’re just here to psychoanalyze me?  Should I be sitting down?”

“heh.  if you want.”  Sans slides onto the floor and Undyne leans on her spear, glaring down at him.  “anyway.  there’s only one other person i’ve met with determination like yours.  and it was a sight to see, i’ll tell ya.  that ambition pushed him to _unprecedented_ good.”  he lowers his face, letting the pupils in his sockets go dark.  “and unspeakable evil.”

Undyne abandons the support of her spear, taking a half step backward.  “So, what?  you’re here to fight me?  You want to keep me from becoming like him?  Because if you think-”

“nah.”  sans stands up, stretching.  “actually, i’m here to warn you.”  He takes a step toward Undyne, recalling the words of some old friend or another, letting his font drop and his pupils fade.  “ _Once you convince yourself you have no choice, you can do anything.  It’s all downhill from there_.”

Undyne shakes her head, looking down.  “Look, I don’t know what makes you think I’ll become like that, but I’m sure as hell not going to hurt your brother.”

“yeah, i’m not too worried about him.”

“Then what are you worried about?”

“well, when you start believing in some greater good, moral lines get fuzzier.  here’s a question.  what if a human falls down here, and it turns out they’re like, a five-year-old child?  young and helpless and perfectly innocent.  what then?”

“That... that wouldn’t change anything!  Child or no, humans are evil.  And besides, what’s one life against freedom for all of monster kind?”

“heh.  damn.  papyrus wasn’t kidding when he said you sound like gaster.”

 

* * *

 

“Alphys?”  Undyne sits on a pile of trash, looking over something she found in the water.  It’s a weapon of some kind, she’s pretty sure.  Something from the human world.

“Yeah?” says Alphys, lowering the anime case she was reading.

“Does the name ‘Gaster’ mean anything to you?”

“Of course it does.  W-what about him?”

“I met Papyrus’s brother yesterday.  He said I sound like him.”

Alphys looks up sharply.  “...Why?”

“He was going on and on about determination and ambition and willpower.  Who was Gaster?”

“H-he was the royal scientist before me.”  Alphys climbs down from the pile she was searching through.  “I never knew him, but I’ve read his notes.  He made the core.”

“But he also did evil stuff?”

“Undyne, do you know how the core _works_?”

“No.”

“It... N... Nevermind.”  Alphys’s tail swings from side to side nervously, making waves in the trash-water.  “Y-yeah.  He also did evil stuff.”

“ _What_ evil stuff?”

“...”

“Alph-”

“I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen the logs... for someone like that to even have existed, it... it doesn’t seem possible.”

“What did he do?”

“A lot of things.  He... he didn’t hurt a _lot_ of people, but he hurt a few... really, REALLY badly.  I.. I don’t know much.  I never met the people he did it to.  But... they _lived_... barely...”

“...Do I really sound like him?”

“I... I wouldn’t know.  I don’t know what he sounded like.”

“How did he die?”

“Suicide.  He... jumped into the core.”

 

* * *

 

Undyne crushes the plastic water cup in her hand as she walks past Sans’ sentry station, mentally cursing the human.  They were toying with her: letting her live after beating her, hiding behind that kid, never once fighting back... how dare they?  How dare they make her feel things?  She slams her front door behind her, throwing the cup into the trash can.

It’s out of her hands now, anyway, she decides.  No human has ever made it past Asgore.  Monsterkind will go free.

But...

She’s seen it on Asgore’s face when he talks about the plan.  He doesn’t want to fight.  Chances are, he’ll just let the human get away.

She takes off her helmet with a defeated sigh.  Why does she care?  After all, the human is going right to him.  He won’t be _able_ to let them get away.  ...Why does she care in the first place?  She’s killed humans before.  Why is it that, when she met this one, she held back?

A person needs a certain darkness in them in order to kill.  Undyne is familiar with it.  She’s seen it in Asgore, and in Gerson, and she’s cultivated it in herself.  She’s felt it’s absence in Papyrus and even as his brother was lecturing her about evil... she could see that he had it, too.  So when the human gave her that cup of water, where had it gone?

If she can’t put something like that aside for the greater good anymore, what does that make her?

Undyne is not afraid of much, but she is terrified of being weak.

 

* * *

 

Undyne doesn’t realize until she burns down her house with them that the human also has the potential to kill.  That darkness is stronger in them than it ever was in her, and yet they manage to ignore it.  When she challenges them to another fight, she expects them to hit with the kind of force Asgore can wield.  Instead, they deliberately pull their punch and feign surprise when it barely damages her.

It occurs to her briefly to be insulted, but in the end she cant help but be impressed.  It’s easy for Papyrus not to kill - he’s never wanted to and never will - but to have the urge and ignore it is something Undyne never thought she’d witness.

So she takes Papyrus’s advice and lets the human go.


End file.
